It’s a Sunday night ritual: plan your meals for the week, watch some football (that’s what sports people do, right?) then, of course, check what movies ruled the box office this weekend. For many, the box office showdown is just as big a competition as what’s happening on the gridiron (that’s a thing, right?). Years of hard work—development, casting, production, post—all boiled down to one little question: did the movie beat The Smurfs in 3D?

This might sound like a weird thing to say, as we’re big movie fanatics here at FilmBuff, but we’re annoyed by the film world’s obsession with box office numbers. We know, we know, the movie industry is first and foremost a business (and an expensive business at that). The studios need to make money to spend money. Those dolla dolla bills you spend at your local cineplex directly dictate what kind of movies, stars, franchises the big studios will keep producing and putting into theaters. We get it: money makes the world go around etc., etc. But we like to shake things up so we’re prepared to say, “Hey! Big guys in the suits with the fancy cars! Box office numbers shouldn’t matter that much!” The reasons are twofold: 1) they never really mattered, and 2) they especially don’t matter now. Let’s get into the facts.

Allow us for a moment to delve into our primary point: The box office has never really mattered. Now this might sound a little controversial and also dumb. We can see your brow scrunching up, and that little voice in your head being all like “Quoi?? Of course box office has mattered, what about huge smash hit blockbusters like the Harry Potter series or major flops like Waterworld?” Let us rephrase a bit: Box office has never really mattered … in terms of quantifying the quality of a film. There are countless examples of critical darlings whose success never translated to the box office:  Citizen Kane and Donnie Darko are two that immediately jump into our heads. Many of these films went on to have a great life in the ancillaries, as they say in the biz (that basically means TV and DVD sales). On the flip side of the coin, there are a crazy amount of films that were universally panned that won the box office that weekend and went on to make a LOT of bank. Which films are going to stand the test of time and which films are going to fade away? 1999 is a great example: The number 1 movie in the box office was Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace and Fight Club only made $37 million (on a $63 million budget… YIKES).

And can we please get over this absurdly derived competition between the films coming out that weekend and recognize that each film’s success is relative? We know that most people aren’t going to go to the movies twice in one weekend so we guess automatically that makes it a riveting battle of Action flick vs 3D Kids schlock: who will prevail? So many huge film successes have been a slow burn; they start out with a mediocre opening weekend and then start ratcheting up the $$$ based on excellent word of mouth. Only for event movies (read: movies where people will dress up, or teen girls will be crying, or both) like Twilight does the opening weekend matter because it makes a statement, but no studio exec in their right mind is expecting to beat Edward and Bella’s sparkly vampire love anyway. Just look at some of the films in 2011 alone that “won” their weekend: Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2, Hop, The Rite, and does anyone even remember what Unknown was? That ‘won’ two weekends in a row in February.

If anything, we should approach the box office like they do in the indie/specialty film world: per screen. The big studio offerings are literally everywhere. You can’t throw a rock in a suburban strip mall without hitting the latest animated sequel, rom-com or superhero flick. Of course people are seeking out these movies in droves because they are the ONLY options. Looking at per screen box office numbers adjusts for how ubiquitous these movies are, and we can get closer to understanding relative success. Take Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams for example. In terms of documentary success, that film is killing it and making a gross of $ 5.2 mil. For something like Rise of the Planet of the Apes that would be a huge let-down just for opening weekend, but it’s great for Herzog and IFC (the film’s distributor). Cave of Forgotten Dreams opened on only five screens, and at it’s high point was only in 123 theaters. That ape flick opened in 3,648 theaters. There’s some complicated math there… but in terms of the opening weekend per screen average for both films: the cave beats the apes.

And now for point numero dos: box office numbers especially don’t matter now. What is it about the present that makes big B.O. numbers matter even less than normal? Digital, silly! The studios know this fact all too well; less and less people are going to the movies and more are turning to digital options at home like VOD and streaming. With so many options for media and entertainment at home, not to mention the P-word that people don’t like to mention (piracy… get your mind out of the gutter!), the theatrical box office just barely demonstrates what people are watching, and what people are liking. It’s happening in the indie world first: many specialty distributors are experimenting with same-day release in theaters and on VOD. Perhaps the big studios should look to their example to start evaluating success free from the box office model.

Are we completely off our rocker here? Should the box office reign supreme? What are some other ideas for evaluating the success of a film? Hit us up in the comments.

Paying a subscription fee for an unlimited monthly pass to the movies sounds like a great idea at first. It could be a tremendous convenience, a possible way to save money, and a license to check out terrible movies without feeling like we’ve wasted the money. MoviePass promises to deliver the sort of satisfaction we had with Netflix for so many years. But quite frankly, the unlimited monthly pass just will not work. For one, big chains including AMC have already refused the passes, skeptical of an outside company setting prices. Still, the company insists on moving forward. Below, we discuss some of the other reasons why this idea won’t work and discuss those who have proclaimed it will.

The Netflix Debacle

Netflix was admittedly getting too good to be true, but even the company’s CEO, Reed Hastings, admitted that he shattered our hearts by increasing the subscription fee from $10 to $16 without a proper explanation. This genius move cost the company four percent of its 25 million customers, according to The New York Times. If movie lovers are not willing to pay $16 a month for unlimited access to movies and TV shows they could watch without ever leaving their home, it is unreasonable to expect they’d be willing to dish out $50 for a MoviePass.

The 3D Problem

You might be thinking to yourself that a Netflix subscription and an unlimited pass to movie theaters cannot be compared. After all, one limits you to televisions, computers and smartphones while the other awes with the spectacle of the big screen. That would be a good point if most films crying out to be seen on the big screen weren’t in 3D. Although 3D is still on the decline, we currently await Martin Scorsese’s kiddy flick Hugo, Steven Spielberg’s animated The Adventures of Tintin and countless other titles. Inconveniently but expectedly, MoviePass still requires an extra three dollar charge for 3D and IMAX movies.

Let’s imagine it’s still summer. In a given month, we might only make it out to the theater once a week. We’ll check out one IMAX “experience,” two 3D superhero flicks and one 2D sleeper of a drama. Based on ticket prices of Regal Cinemas in Los Angeles, the grand total would come out to approximately $60.50 for the month. With MoviePass, you would still have to pay $59. The benefit of the pass is minimal, and it is virtually non-existent if you live in a city with lower ticket prices (though this might change according to MoviePass’ new plan to vary prices based on location). A successful monthly fee would need to cover the 3D up-charge.

The Indie Issue

Maybe mainstream 3D movies aren’t quite your thing. Instead, you love independent releases and small theaters. An unlimited monthly pass won’t be universal, and there is no guarantee that the few theaters in your area playing French biopics and mudraking documentaries will be covered. Besides, these films are most likely playing at theaters like New York’s Film Forum, Los Angeles’ NuArt or Chicago’s Music Box, all theaters that typically play less than three different movies on a given week. If we underuse the pass, which would be very likely, the only people benefiting are the folks at MoviePass.

The Bottom Line

Simply put, an unlimited monthly theater pass will disappoint all possible target demographics, ranging from popcorn-munching action junkies to pretentious cinephiles. Instead of convenience, we will be limited to participating theaters. Instead of saving money, we will scramble to get our money’s worth, lest we lose on our investment. And instead of enjoying movies we wouldn’t otherwise pay for, we will end up wasting our time with garbage that doesn’t deserve our money and consequently doesn’t deserve our time. Unless someone gives us an unlimited pass that is affordable and universal, this scheme should be stopped in its tracks.

There are some dynamic Hollywood duos that always work. They are actors that work so well together they warrant the kind of name smash ups of BrAngelina’s prestige (nothing beats the original). Then there are the other ones: the actors that make movies together, that we never want to see again (we’re looking at you Ben and JLo). Amidst the best and the worst lie the duos that keep coming back with relative, albeit controversial success. Name that couple: Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd. Initial reactions usually go one of two ways—“Oh god, please no, not again”—or something along the lines of “oh, I just love them, she’s amazing and he’s a legend.”  Whether you’re a fan of Freeman’s grizzled old school detective style (typecast) or Judd’s gritty gorgeous gal flair, the two make a couple worthy of conversation. Let the hallway chatter ensue…

Kiss the Girls (1997)

The springboard for the duo’s later collaborative pieces didn’t exactly provide the response to support future projects. It was poorly received by audiences and critics alike, but carried enough weight with the two actors to pull some decent box office numbers.

High Crimes (2002)

Another lukewarm reception was the environment around the release of High Crimes. Across the board the consensus from critics seemed to be that the two actors, as individuals, gave strong performances, but the collective quilt of the film was missing a few threads. While the film is a typical mystery thriller, the twist ending is not the most surprising thing you’ll see, but the next movie on our list may be…

Dolphins Tale (2011)

Okay simple plot here: dolphin loses it’s tail in a crab trap, and Harry Connick Jr. rescues the dolphin. A young boy befriends the injured mammal, Ashley Judd is his mother, and Morgan Freeman is a doctor that makes a prosthetic tail for the injured dolphin. See the pun? We’re going to step aside and let you digest this for a second. It’s a convoluted story but at least there’s no attempt at a Freeman and Judd love story to muddy the matter.

Some couples just aren’t meant to be, while others clearly are. We leave the final decision to you ‘Buffs. Should Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman leave the movie-making collabs to others, or can we sit tight in anticipation of Dolphins Tale 2?

If Hollywood truly were a high school cafeteria, we all agree these B-List kids wouldn’t be eating alone in a bathroom stall or even with the custodian, but they wouldn’t exactly, say, be with the Plastics either (nudge, nudge Mean Girls). The B listers have given us many great things (great sidekicks, eye candy in comedies, etc), but we’re not sure their production companies are exactly what we were looking for.  We don’t want to speak for their films or companies…so we’ll let the IMDB scores give you an idea of how things turned out…

So, what do you think? Are you cheering “you go boy!” back at Martin Lawrence? Or could it be that, for these guys, the letter B really stands for, “although it may Bemuse us, please, for the love of all that is holy in Hollywood, do not try to step out of your Box?”  Shout to us below.

Let’s be honest, we FilmBuff’s LOVE our films, don’t we? We love our films so much that we become quite protective of them and refuse to accept any changes to them–let alone a remake. C’mon, we can’t be the only ones angry about the new Footloose remake?

Needless to say, when we first got word of a remake of the classic The Bodyguard we weren’t the least bit thrilled. But we let it marinate for a bit (and faced the fact that it will happen even if we oppose) and decided that a remake might not be bad. There has been talk of Rihanna or Miley Cyrus playing Whitney Huston’s part but that doesn’t fly to well with us, so we took the liberty of choosing someone else. No need to thank us.

Who could play Whitney’s part, you ask? Well none other than Jennifer Hudson. Now before you start shaking your head and scrolling down, just think about it. J-Hud, like Whiteny in 1992, has a huge buzz around her at the moment as a respected vocalist and actress on the rise. Her acting skills are definitely on point. Have you seen her in ‘Dreamgirls’? No? Well that’s okay. All you need to know is she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Yep, she’s the biz. And before you say it, yes it’s true that no one can compare to Whitney–in the 90′s–vocal wise but J-Hud comes pretty damn close. So, J-Hud for Rachel Morron?

Now, we thought long and hard about this one because–let’s face it–no one can replace Kevin Costner. However, we feel Daniel Craig has the star quality and the sexy-bad-ass look that it takes to be Frank Farmer, don’t you think? He definitely proved himself worthy of this type of roll in 007. Besides, if you squint your eyes a bit and look really fast they kinda look alike.

Up next in our romcom reboots is The Diary of Bridget Jones, another FilmBuff favorite. We decided to put a little spin on this reboot and  splash some color into it. Yep you heard us COLOR.  For Bridget we’d cast the talented Nia Long. Her resume is quite appealing with classic movies like Love Jones, Soul Food and The Best Man: all great films that she has left her mark in. We also thinks she’s a great pick because she’d look just as stunning as Renee Zellweger did gaining a pound or thirty.

For Hugh Grant’s character, Daniel Cleaver, we were kinda up in the air with this one.   At first  we had some trouble finding an actor. We knew we needed someone that can be goofy and sexy at the same time. Someone with an awkward cuteness to them. As our brains started working we instantly thought of Marlon Wayans, just look at him!

Doesn’t he look charming and cute but makes you want to laugh? We think he’d be great for Daniel Cleaver, he’d definitely bring his Wayans humor (wonder if it’s in their genes?).

To complete this trio there’s only one person we see fit to play the arrogant, rude and then suddenly sweet love interest of Bridget – Jamie Foxx. We think Jamie would make a great Mark Darcy–just imagine him channeling his charming and arrogant character in Dreamgirls. There’s no questioning whether or not he can bring the funny because the man had a hit comedy show called, The Jamie Fox show, not to mention he was on Living Color. Oh, and let’s not forget about his Oscar winning role in Ray.

So what do you think? We’re pretty confident in our cast, but if you must give us your opinion, hit us below!

Battleship, Candyland, and Ouija are clearly badass gamery.  Screwing over our friends and sinking their ships?  Fun!  Racing friends through a troves of delicious candy?  Thrilling!  Conjuring spirits to tell us whether or not our seventh grade crush really loved us?  Weird, but awesome.  But what happens to these memories, these associations, when Hollywood butchers them and creates movies based on their premise (or more aptly leveraging their name)?  We say anarchy and we aren’t happy about it.

We used to get movies from talented sources;  original screenplays, stage plays, novels, comic books and hey sometimes even TV shows.  In a world where pretty much every facet of entertainment can be created into a movie (think roller coasters, video games, etc).  We’re not completely hating on the idea.  Clue was a wonderful venture, but that was in the 80′s when they tried to make the whole concept simple and fun.  No special effects.  No CGI.  Just a board game brought to life.  Remember?

What could Candy Land possibly be about?!?  Well according to the screenwriters, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, “We don’t see it as a movie based on a board game, although it has characters from that world and takes the idea of people finding themselves in a world that happens to be made entirely of candy where there are huge battles going on.  We are going for real comedy, real action, and real emotions at stake.”  Then why the hell are you calling it Candy Land if its not a movie based on the board game but just using the characters names?  To make money?  That’s just pathetic and basically says that without the branding of Candy Land you wouldn’t be able to make your movie.  As a writer, could you please have a little dignity?

As for Battleship, we can’t even understand how someone thought this could be a good idea.  A studio turned our beloved board game (grid game?) into an sci-fi alien naval fight.  Sker-what?!?!

Yeah, this couldn’t even be a straight war, action flick.  It now involves aliens. Liam Neeson stop, stop right now.  You need to start being more discerning with your films.  You were in Schindler’s List!  Stop ruining the memory of your talent by participating in mediocre scripts and ideas.  You give otherwise crappy movies some kind of clout.  No amount of money is worth this.  If you need the cash, you can come and stay with us.  Perhaps write a blog or two.  We’ll help you out.

Ouija boards have all kinds of creepy lore around them so we thought this would actually be the most legit game upon which to base a movie.  Sounds cool right?  Well we were happy UNTIL we found out Michael Bay was rumored to be directing the movie.  This whole rumor led us to believe the film would involve lots of action and little story.  But apparently Universal decided to drop the idea.  So one win for the good guys.  but what can we do about these other hot messes?

Anyone excited to see Battleship?  Or would you rather have them made a Monopoly movie (don’t worry…they are)?  But we can guarantee all of these movies will not compare to this parody trailer…

We here at FilmBuff have a pet peeve. We like to call it Madonna/Gwyneth syndrome. Why oh WHY do American actresses and celebrities want to be British? After they spend a bit of time over the pond, maybe they star in a BBC miniseries or marry a British dude, why do they start to speak with a British accent as if we are just going to up and forget that they are from Chi-caaahgo?!? Do they not remember the American Revolution? Do they just want us to forget about the Boston Massacre and think they look dainty in Welly boots sipping a cuppa at tea time?

The latest perpetrator of this accent-muddling crime? Gillian Anderson. Better known to American audiences and extraterrestrial believers as Agent Scully, Gillian has quietly been trying to make us forget about her US citizenship for some time now but it’s NOT gonna work. We’re onto you, Anderson. Alright, we can kind of understand and sympathize with Gillian. With The X Files, she was part of a pop cultural phenomenon for nine years, and it must have been frustrating to get pigeonholed as that one character. To many people she’ll always be Agent Scully… can you even imagine how many people who believe aliens live in their shower she has to deal with on a daily basis? So, we get it, Gillian wanted to reinvent herself and get back to her roots as a serious thespian on the stage and in arty, literary projects. That is totally fine by us. We actually think its awesome, you go Glen Coco and all that jazz. But we’re not going to forget you’re from Chicago, so don’t show up on talk shows sounding like Kate Middleton.

For all intents and purposes, Gillian has succeeded at distancing herself from The X Files. At first, she tried the American society that basically seems British route, by starring as Lily Bart in Terence Davies’ version of The House of Mirth, and getting good notices for her performance. She was distracted for a bit by starring in not one but two X Files movies (gotta make that bank!), she then went on a British acting bonanza, starring in The Mighty Celt, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, The Last King of Scotland and Boogie Woogie. But she really put the nail in her American-citizenship coffin, by doing what all legit British actors do: star in a BBC miniseries and act in a play at London’s Donmar warehouse. She was nominated for a BAFTA for her portrayal of Lady Dedlock in Bleak House and rave reviews for her Nora in Ibsen’s A Dolls House.

This is all wonderful, good for you Gillian etc. etc. We’re not gonna hate, we at FilmBuff love when a TV actor gets further success in film. The one thing that really rubs us the wrong way is that Gillian speaks with a British accent now! In real life! Check out this interview below. It is not even a pseudo accent like Madonna’s where she just sounds vaguely posh, this is a full-on Queen’s English accent. Apparently Gillian lived in England from when she was 2-11 and then moved back to the Midwest. Okay, that’s kind of cool, but we don’t know if we buy that excuse. Firstly, we can barely even remember our years from 2-11. Secondly, we were really into playdough when we were that age, but that doesn’t mean we revert to chomping on blue playdough every time we’re in a toy store. That analogy works, just go with it. It just puts us ill at ease to see Gillian talking like a good ol Midwestern girl when she’s on Jay Leno, and then a month later sounding like a posh Eliza Doolittle on the Graham Norton show. Gillian, you’re not British, so stop pretending to be.

‘Buffs, are we being harsh? Do you think Gillian sounds lovely? Do you switch your accent depending on where you are too (it’s y’all in Georgia, and youse guys in Brooklyn)? Let us know in the comments.

Okay, we all like movies here, so we like it when our favorite actors and actresses flex their “skill-z” and show us what they got. But we at FilmBuff are really befuddled by something: Why is it when major actors and actresses take on roles that are just a smiiiidgen outside of their comfort zone fans and critics go crazy?

All it takes is Sean Penn scrunching up his face a bit or Meryl Streep putting on some random Dutch accent and all of sudden people are throwing Oscars at them and they are all on twitter and the blogosphere (ugh, sorry, horrible pun not intended). And, okay, Sean and Meryl can pull it off, but that doesn’t mean that every celeb should play parts so foreign to them they have to change their nationality, race or gender. What we’re trying to say is not everyone is as good as Kirk Lazarus. Sometimes “types” exist for a reason. Just like Cary Grant embraced his role as charismatic leading man and Audrey Hepburn stayed the dainty ingenue, the Hollywood idols of today need to learn that playing against type is not always good for their careers. Here are a few examples of major actors’ failed attempts to mix it up.

Cate Blanchett in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – Cate, Cate, Cate, what were you thinking? We kinda thought Cate Blanchett didn’t really have a type until we saw 2008′s bonkers Indiana Jones sequel. After all she’s played everyone from Katherine Hepburn to Queen Elizabeth to Bob Dylan. But apparently she has a genre type and action adventure sequel is not it. Cate played Irina Spalko, a villainous Soviet agent with an over the top Russian accent that bordered on caricature. When it all culminated in Blanchett worshiping crystal alien skulls, we couldn’t help but think, ‘How many Oscars has she won again?’

Will Smith in Seven Pounds – We think Will Smith needs to get back to his roots, his Fresh Prince/Parent’s Just Don’t Understand days. Here’s why: a) He needs to start wearing more day-glo again. Definitely. b) He needs to remember people love him for his goofy funny man charisma. The overwrought, muddled Seven Pounds represents Smith’s recent foray into drama, and they just make us uncomfortable. We want the Will Smith who jokes about aliens with cocky bravado, not talking about death or drugs or whatever that movie was about. We’re still trying to figure that out.

Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Back in the 90′s Keanu was a big Hollywood hunk known for his surfer dude persona. That was the Keanu type and, whoa, was he good at it. But then there was a little while when Keanu tried to get serious and go against his bro destiny and star in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He literally has one of the worst British accents ever on film. He sounds like a strange effeminate puppet. Fortunately Keanu found his way back to his type, and starred as one of the ultimate movie bros: Neo in The Matrix.

Natalie Portman in Hesher­- One of the most irritating trends in this whole phenomenon is when gorgeous (and we’re talking undeniably gorgeous) actors and actresses try to play ugly, dowdy characters. In Hesher, we’re supposed to believe that Natalie Portman is an awkward, frumpy grocery store worker? Just because they slap on a pair of granny glasses that hipsters seem to find fashionable anyway? Seriously? Portman is unable to hone down her natural charisma, which just makes her character unbelievable and seriously took us out of the movie. Pretty people, stop trying to be ugly! Embrace your beauteousness. End rant.

So, what are some of your favorite playing-against-type train wrecks? What are some examples where it worked?…we’re thinking Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, Mo’Nique in Precious, etc. Are you offended the we called The One the ultimate Bro (sorry Morpheus!)? Fight it out in the comments.

At some point in the trailer for Rise Of The Planet of the Apes the fact that we’re stuck in a reboot glut becomes clear.  It’s only a matter of time before we get a new Groundhog Day. Maybe it’s the fact that an entire two hour event could be summed up in two minutes:

Now we already lived through one remake of Planet of the Apes thanks to Tim Burton. Problem was, it stunk and had an ending that made everyone groan at Abraham Caesar. Well now, we get to see a prequel to a remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.  That is if people bother to show up.

The history behind this production doesn’t bode too well: constant rewrites, no one wanting to touch it and then James Franco coming in once Tobey Maguire passed on it. One assumes if they tried hard enough, Franco’s stoner ideal will mutter Ricardo Montalbán’s famous line:

Franco’s certainly no circus showman, but taking the plot premise from Deep Blue Sea and seeing how it works with an all-CGI simian cast can’t be that good of an idea. Maybe we’ll be wrong and Rise will actually be an entertaining end-of-summer reboot after what we’ve previously seen with a reboot of the X-Men franchise, a new Pooh movie and in-logline-only with Friends with Benefits/No Strings Attached.

It isn’t alone: likewise in August we’ll see the release of a Fright Night remake that changes local “Ghoulardi” Peter Vincent (…coincidentally played by Roddy McDowell as well. Hm) into David Tennant as a Criss Angel by way of Russell Brand; a remake of Conan The Barbarian starring, again in awesome coincidence, Jason Momoa, who is best known earlier this summer for playing Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones and yet another Spy Kids film with scratch n’ sniff.  The desire to remake franchises isn’t anything new for Hollywood, but in the last four Summers, it has become a deafening Michael Bay BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. The reason that Rise of the Planet of the Apes, formerly Cesear and Rise of the Apes, has survived production hell for so long is the “cult” bankability behind the title.

It’s the same bankability we’re not so sure lies with our friend Franco these days. On one hand, we’re big fans of his doc work–Saturday Night is arguably one of the best behind-the-scenes docs about Saturday Night Live not produced in-house, but there are still hints that we’re getting this access because Franco hosted a few weeks prior, which is in itself fascinating. But Franco the genre actor is incredibly fun in his own way–Your Highness/Pineapple Express? Not terrible if you’re in on the same joke.  But aping ape love for a faux-ape?

We’re not sure if all the sticky icky in the world could make us care about that when there’s upcoming stuff like The Devil’s Double and anything NOT intending on being rebooted for the umpteenth time in two years.

So no doubt you have all seen that fantastic Horrible Bosses trailer that has been making its way around the interwebz (if not, see below). What’s so fantastic about it? Well, here at FilmBuff think it has a lot to do with Colin Farrell’s outlandish performance and hysterical comb over. We know he’s gotten a bum rap these past few years—Alexander? Miami Vice? What were you thinking, Colin? But here’s why Colin Farrell is really just misunderstood.

Did any of you know he’s Irish? Sure, that may be common knowledge now, but, for a lot longer than we’d care to admit, we had no idea. He starred in films like Minority Report, Phone Booth and S.W.A.T with such an impeccable American accent that we naturally assumed he was American. It was until Daredevil that we had an inkling he might not be from the US. Seriously, how can someone with such a heavy Irish accent pull off a perfect American accent? It’s because he’s got talent, that’s how. That’s right, talent. He might not pick the best films to show his acting chops, but he manages to steal every scene that he’s in. He was in a Terrence Malick film, for pete’s sake!

Ok, so maybe he was a bit of a party boy and womanizer—having been linked to Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton and Rihanna, just to name a few—but ever since his son was diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome (a genetic disorder characterized by intellectual and developmental delay) he’s been a good boy, focusing more on his family life than his latest conquest.

What’s more, Farrell has been extremely prolific since making his way into the Hollywood mainstream, starring in at least two films a year since 2002 and winning a Golden Globe for his role in In Bruges alongside fellow Irishman Brendan Gleeson. After Horrible Bosses, he has the Fright Night remake (with Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Toni Collette, David Tennant and Anton Yelchin) coming out in August and is currently filming Total Recall with Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Ethan Hawke and Bill Nighy.

Colin Farrell isn’t an utter douche. He’s just Irish.

Was Bridesmaids a fluke? Obviously, judging by how it’s doing (it IS the highest grossing movie in the Judd Apatow family) it doesn’t seem like anything is wrong. The reviews were stellar, people are giving it buckets of money for third time viewings (including us), but…was this the only movie that didn’t box women into stereotypically comedic roles?

Let us break it down for you:

These are the norms you can see in many female driven “comedies” or what most humans call “chick-flicks” (puke, die, murder):

They fall. A lot. So much so, someone mashed up a bunch of them into one youtube video.

They cry  a lot  over men. That they always take back.

They have a one dimensional gay best friend (that could also be substituted for an overly sexual, one-liner friend) (or both.)

They work at high power jobs that always give them enough money yet never fully fullfill their hopes and dreams of getting married and finding the right guy. SEE: Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses, Bride Wars, Something Borrowed, The Proposal,etc, etc.

Let’s stop there, shall we? So then Bridesmaids comes out and breaks every single one of these down. The only time someone falls…is when she’s shitting her pants. The only time someone cries…is when their best friend cries over being scared of the life ahead of her. There isn’t a one dimensional best friend. At all. None of them have high powered jobs. At all…except maybe Melissa McCarthy’s character, but she’s so fantastically bizarre who cares!

This is amazing, yes? But…why aren’t other comedies like this? Why do people still qualify Bridesmaids as the chick version of the Hangover when they clearly have nothing in common? Do you give a shit what happens to any of those guys? No, because it’s just funny. Why are women seen as “female comedians” and not just “funny people” or “comediennes”? “She’s funny for a girl”. No she’s funny because she’s funny.

I'm so pretty. Let me be funny. I'm so pretty.

Could it have to do with the “prettiness” factor? Marilyn Monroe was “allowed” to be funny in Some Like it Hot…but she has boobs. Boobs. She was “cute-funny”. Kathryn Hepburn was “smart-funny”. Why can’t all women like the lovely ladies in Bridesmaids be “cuss-funny”, “gross-out-funny”, “everyday person-funny”. All the women in Bridesmaids are stunning, and also balls to the wall, no-holding-back funny.

They tried to do that with Bad Teacher, we think. However, it was a shitty script. And the plot that drives Cameron Diaz is that she wants a boob job so that Justin Timberlake will like her. She also puts on a skimpy outfit and does a car wash. Sigh.

"Ahahah. I ruin everything I touch."

Kate Hudson comedies or Katherine Heigl comedies give chicks a terrible name. Kate Hudson has literally been in the SAME Kate Hudson movie over and over again. So why do they keep getting made? We thought Miss Congeniality was something awesome, Sandra Bullock was so so funny and as far as physical comedy goes–she gets the cake. But then when you take a step back from how funny she is, you realize that she had to become this super hot babe for the guy to even notice/like her in “that way”.

Guys, there were two movies within less than a year of each other about friends with benefits scenarios. Two within a year. No. We have no problem with chicks or dicks hooking up with whomsoever they please. As long as it makes sense. And we laugh or feel anything at all. You’ve seen the mashup of No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits yes? No? Let’s drive our point home a little further than. So far we crash into a house.

Let’s put Emma Stone in a movie written by Tina Fey or Amy Poehler. Let’s put Kat Dennings and the ladies of SNL in a movie written by Kristen Wiig or Mindy Kaling or Annie Mumolo. Hell, we would take a Bridesmaids II if it had an ounce more depth than the second Hangover movie. We aren’t saying men don’t know how to write female characters, and we aren’t even saying women know how to write female characters. Hello Bride Wars was written by two women and it was one of the most over-the-top cliche’s of a movie you will never see.

This doesn't happen in real life.

Better yet, why can’t there just be a movie where love isn’t a thing. We hate love in comedies. Why? Because it has never been done well. Sure, Going the Distance was better than most romantic comedies…but is that all we get? We won’t see a romantic comedy pretty much ever because they all suck and have for the past decade. If guys tripped, cried, had a one dimensional best friend, fabulous jobs but couldn’t find a woman because they didn’t know who they were yet…you would think it was ridiculous. Imagine the Hangover like that? Or Knocked Up? We’d want to inject acid through our brains.

We shall now step down from our soap box and ask you to dish it back to us. Comments not soap. What do we look like, some sort of soap collectors? Yell at us. Stomp your feet. Tell us Bridesmaids wasn’t a fluke. Tell us there is a market for something else like it. Please.

It all started with a “qui.” Then the clip, which surfaced last month, of Bradley Cooper promoting The Hangover Part 2 in France, speaking French, became the start of a snowballing  debate. As Kyle Buchanan wrote at Vulture, “Maybe Cooper should try this French thing a little more often! Or, alternately, are people starting to realize that they had been kind of a dick to him? Because really, why was he so divisive in the first place?”

Well, we’d like to think Wedding Crashers had a fair amount to do with that. The general public’s first major introduction to our favorite tool since the screwdriver was as the romantic bro-blocker to Rachel McAdams. Sure, we could witness the tooling around in Touching Evil (really, drawing a blank there) or as a willing bottom in Wet Hot American Summer if you were a big Stella/The State fan.

But why do we think he’s a tool? Well, if you twisted our arm, we’d consider him the Leatherman. The type of tool ready to tool itself in any situation, but one that we’re oddly drawn to carrying around with us. As if, by association, we’re ready to handle him–but we’re really not. It’s his smarmy nature, which made him oddly perfect as Eddie, the amoral drug addict in Limitless. And he was the epitome of “dick” when it comes to blowing off the consistently crazy Sandra Bullock in All About Steve–which coincidentally happens to be the epitome of avant-rétard.  The Hangover gave us the unlovable jerk that bros around the country have decided to emulate, but he also got his friends screwed in The Midnight Meat Train because, as a struggling artist, he just had to capture “the soul of the city.” By the way, generally the “soul of the city” may turn out to be something about evil eternal creatures that just happen to live in the subways.

Maybe it’s Cooper’s smile-sneer that he seems to throw out while charming the ladies, but he just comes across as the type of guy who’d charm your parents while beating the shit out of your fr–oh wait, right. Wedding Crashers.

It’s that constant one-note-joke of Cooper as “the Bro Next Door” that becomes even stranger, since he’s a New School grad–he even showed up on an Inside The Actors Studio in the studio! In a way, we want to like you Bradley. But there’s something about Failure To Launch that makes us wonder how much of this is acting versus showing up on set and striking a “Blue Steel” for the camera.  It’s the type of mugging that reminds us why we gave up on Matthew McConaughey for so long after Dazed and Confused. We just got too old for the same creepy/awesome dude who used to go to our high school.

Bradley Cooper, with your “Cary Grant”-ish ways, we dub thee tool. You both have your uses and also annoy us to no end, but it is ultimately too much baggage to put up with you (a third Hangover? Really?). We just wish you’d own up to your toolishness and give us a second Limitless–this time with you just toying with starving children in Africa while you eat a raw steak and Kanye West does a live performance. Please.

Here’s the deal.  There are a bunch of folk out there who call themselves film buffs, but fail at actually being one. How so you may ask?  You just went to my local art house theater and saw tons of people praising the latest documentary about circus walruses.  Well, seeing a few documentaries and picking apart movies from a genre enjoyed by the masses doesn’t make you a film buff.  That, in fact, makes them film snobs!

Film Snobs (FS’s) have been hating on “the comedy” for a while now. They assume that if a film makes you laugh, it can’t be high quality writing. FS’s think that comedy writers lack ability in creating anything clever or worthwhile.  And, look at the Oscars every year…the celebration of comedies is a rare thing.  Dramas get all the love.  But at FilmBuff, we think that ‘Buffs need a variety of films in their repertoire to really form proper opinions.  And we promise that once you let comedies into your lives, you will never go back to judging a film by its laughter.

We agree that some movies are bad and some bad movies are comedies. But any statistical analyst knows correlation does not imply causation! We have a rich history of comedies that are critically acclaimed like Some Like It Hot, Annie Hall or Duck Soup. Even more recent ones like Borat or The Big Lebowski have been loved by critics.

We can also agree that the execution of comedies has been lacking as of late. But we promise the genre is just as fresh as it’s always been. Here are some of the redeeming qualities a comedy can have that you should look for before writing it off:

A Well Crafted Plot

Anyone who watches Hot Fuzz and tells us the writing of that script didn’t take a considerable amount of craft and utter brilliance will be tarred in the the FilmBuff tar pit. All movies have plots, agreed?  However, not all movies rely on those plots. Some movies rely on the strength of their characters. For examples, action films need a good plot to keep you engaged.  Now let’s think of comedies.  They rely on inciting laughter, and in special cases, they also deliver a detailed and well structured story.
Good Examples: the aforementioned Hot Fuzz, Clue, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

The Movie Says Something

Message in movies?  HELLO!  Plenty of messages end up in all kinds of movies.  Let’s think Norma Rae, Milk, etc, etc.  However, think about how poking fun at a point can create a realization for their audience.  Using comedy to get your message across is a powerful tool. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are masters of satire. Team America: World Police is a satire on America’s mindset and ignorance towards foreign nations. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut is about censorship. Rather than using crude humor for cheap laughs, they use it to inform their audience while entertaining them…and being a bit crude.
Good Examples: Little Miss Sunshine, The Great Dictator, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

It’s JUST THAT FUNNY

Remember that movie you saw a few weeks ago that brought you to tears?   Yeah, that movie was great BUT Leonardo DiCaprio can make anyone cry.  But have we seen master Leo NAIL a comedy?  NO!  Comedy is about putting yourself out there, making a fool of yourself and getting the audience to agree with your comedic sensibilities.  If they aren’t laughing, you aren’t succeeding.  If you want your audience to laugh, there’s only one way to do it: be GENUINELY funny.  When a movie just goes for it full steam ahead and forgets their concerns – comedic gold can be struck.  Ridiculousness of the plot usually has a desired effect.
Good Examples: Bringing up Baby, The 40-Year Old Virgin, Arsenic and Old Lace, This is Spinal Tap, Ace Venture: Pet Detective

The point is:  you can glare at the screen and be” oh-so-cool” as you scoff at comedy that is so low brow, or you can just laugh too. Get over yourself. Lighten up. Word out.

The resurgence of first-person points-of-view became popular in the late 90s thanks to The Last Broadcast and The Blair Witch Project. Of course, the two split wildly and the “found footage” genre extended out into the fun realms of Paranormal Activity and then into the redundant remake of [REC] that was Quarantine. First-person films, like any format, run the definitive risk of repetition and boredom–i.e. the handling of Cloverfield, while we still quote T.J. Miller quite randomly (“What is that?” “IT’S A TERRIBLE THING.”)

They’re sliding into the one trick pony land of “found footage,” which provides an easy excuse for adjustment into the world. In The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an immersive experience for the audience that can’t see the torture of being trapped in their own body. So if first person is so great, how come we don’t see it more often? Well, we do, except not in the way you think.

Shot from the end of The Last Broadcast

YouTube and online videos have been the new proving ground for POV experimentation from prank videos to even the old days of loneygirl15. We know, we were trying to make a point earlier about genre not needing to rely on it, but c’mon, have you seen Marble Hornets and everymanHYBRID? Both series follow a born-on-the-Internet-boogyman known as The Slender Man and use their cameras to capture the daily goings on of trying to piece together clues and figure out who the faceless creature in a business suit really is. And really, if you don’t know who The Slender Man is–well, don’t go near any trees with a camcorder at night.

Let’s not get too far ahead–1947′s The Lady in the Water welcomed its audience with the promise it would turn them all into Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled, snub nosed hero. It’s something that we, as an audience, would blend into our camcorder home movie culture whose influence came back later to mainstream audiences when Steven Spielberg made us afraid of POV, water and a shark named bruce in Jaws. But it’s coming back in an awesome way with films like The Troll Hunter and Atrocious.

We should be embracing the variety that POV offers to us in terms of storytelling and presentation of a handheld variety that isn’t just rehashing the same–literally, as Atrocious may be remade by the crew behind Insidious/Paranormal Activity. We can expand on this further with dramatic works, or even the sequences that mirror first-person shooters like in Doom and Kick-Ass, which weirdly mirrors the animations from .

Gamer culture is already immersed into the first-person format, spread further out into cinematic openings and cut-scenes like in Halo, Modern Warfare and Fallout franchise. For now we put up with the genre roles, but even doc work like Catfish extols the importance of the first-person lens to heighten a situation.

So there are some “It” people in Hollywood who we decided are allowed to be “It” people (we gave ourselves this power to decide) because they can back it up with talent. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt? See Girl, Interrupted and Inglourious Basterds.  Johnny Depp? See anything he’s ever done. The list is longer, but it doesn’t go on. There are some people who keep getting cast and we can’t help but wonder why? You’ve  seen countless articles written about these people, but we don’t give an avocado about their personal lives. We are making our “judgements” based on their quality (or lack thereof) of work and the history of terrible movies on their resumes. Sigh. We just want the talent back. We want more unique performances. They aren’t giving us them so we think they should leave acting (or rethink their careers).  Here we go…

Megan Fox

Front pages of magazines LOVE this woman. Mostly for her looks…or  her attitude or the random words she decides to say, however, we would like to only talk about her acting career.  She hasn’t proven that she can back up her words with talent. She has yet to act in a movie that has impressed us. Sure, we loved Jennifer’s Body, but everyone who saw it knows that it was Diablo Cody’s smart-as-a-whip dialogue and Amanda Seyfried’s performance that made it pure awesomeness. It was so not Megan Fox’s movie, even though it was billed as such.

Transformers wasn’t about acting at all, but we aren’t huge fans of chicks being used as sex symbols only in movies. We like them to actually do something. Like be smart and pretty in movies. In How to Make Friends and Alienate People she played, yet again, the sex pot character. Perhaps those are the only roles she can get now? Or the only roles she ever gets in general? It doesn’t take much to pout your lips and wear whatever lingerie the wardrobe department picks out. You know what takes a lot? Putting your soul on camera.  Other actresses her age try their hand at new things.  Like, let’s see, Rachel McAdams played Regina George in Mean Girls. She was a bitch. Did she get type cast as the bitch? No. She followed it up with The Notebook and then a slew of other different kinds of roles.

Here’s the deal though, Megan Fox was hired to be in Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love the Way You Lie” music video. And she wasn’t bad. In fact, she impressed us. Of course, she didn’t talk at all. But she actually, you know, acted. So, where’s that girl? It’s a hard world, the world of acting–we know she’s trying, but she has to prove a lot to us for us to take her seriously. Ever. You have to be more than just a pretty face for us to respect you.

Gerard Butler

I know, I know. Ya’ll are roaring at the screen at this. But really, think about it. Have any of his performances been different? He basically played a variation of the same character in The Ugly Truth, P.S I Love You and The Bounty Hunter. Stop relying on your accent to make you “act”, Butler. There will be a day when people will only remember you shouting “THIS IS ME ACTING” in 300.

Here’s the deal, he has yet to prove he can expand his chops past being a likable douche or some romantic guy in a movie. We’d like to see him take the Clive Owen route. Play the douche then change it up and play the underdog or a father or anything other than silly romance movies or action movies. Gamer? What is that movie?? Some could say it’s just the bad writing in those films, but many talented actors can still shine in crappily written films.  Wait, you are remembering him in The Phantom of the Opera?

Don’t even get us started on him playing the Phantom. The only reason to see that movie is Emmy Rossum because she was eighteen and hitting notes pretty much no one can hit. We don’t need to see him try and sing again. You can’t talk-sing and call it singing. Sure he hits some notes, but man that one big note he has to hit in “Music of the Night” (4:10) was helped so much by post-production auto-tune that it made us actually cringe. And get goosebumps in a bad way. Chew on a drama, we say to him, and let us see if you have chops.

Kristen Stewart

Twilight is a thing. Everyone knows it. So we won’t talk about how poorly adapted, poorly written, overly-dramatically acted, under-performed it is. Here’s the deal, we would be fine with her dead-eyed acting in this movie had she pulled a Robert Pattinson and backed it up with incredible performances prior to and before Twilight (see Little Ashes and Water for Elephants). However, she hasn’t. We don’t mind husky-voiced actresses at all, as long as they don’t sound bored with everything. Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Lawrence have lower voices but they do something with them. And they both are incredible actresses. Stewart doesn’t seem interested or into any of her performances.

In Adventureland she seemed to be hipster over it. In The Yellow Handkerchief? Over it. In fact, only in Into the Wild did she seem mildly interested. Even that’s a stretch. The Cake Eaters was kind of an embarrassment. In fact, when she had to scream in The Messengers we cringed at the forced-ness. She did it the same way in the third Twilight movie. She seems like a cool chick in real life, so we wanna see that on screen.

Girl, you are 21, you can do pretty much anything you want thanks to Twilight. So, pick scripts that will force you to be something other than be uninterested.  Lip-biting is not making a dramatic acting choice. It’s lip-biting. Stuttering a lot isn’t how you show that you are confused or surprised. It’s stuttering. Emma Stone is around your age–and she’s doing dramas and comedies with all different performances. In fact, she’s even different in her comedies. Easy A and The House Bunny were completely different comedic performances. Do that. Broaden the horizons.

We hope that maybe she can surprise us one day, but we won’t get our hopes up too high. For our sanity’s sake. Bring back the Panic Room Kristen!

Ashton Kutcher

WHAT?! BUT HE WAS ON PUNK’D! SPELLED WITHOUT THE “E” BECAUSE HE’S SO COOL! No. Sorry, but every time he is in a movie he is playing the cocky guy. Every time we see him in those camera commercials? He plays a cocky version of himself. He’s too smug and it shows in all of his performances. When we watch his movies we feel like we are watching Ashton Kutcher playing ____. We don’t go, “Holy jeez, I forgot that was Leonardo DiCaprio” we get annoyed instead. We don’t care if you are bringing Natalie Portman a carrot bouquet.

Just be a nice guy for a change (on screen of course, we are sure he is nice in person)—but don’t waste the nice characters on stupid stuff like Valentine’s Day. He was lost amidst product placement for acting in that one. Let’s not forget his super underrated performance in Killers with that one chick Katherine Heigl who almost made this list. Or what about Spread, where he really expanded his talent? Wait…

You were great on That 70′s Show, you are a television actor. Please stay there for us. Thanks dude.

Thoughts ‘Buffs? Favorite least favorite actors/actresses? Heat up that comments section guys!

image via.

Nostalgia feels as ingrained into our cultural appetite as a Cole Porter stomp is a daily meal for Woody Allen. Everything seems better with the goggles firmly in place, from slap bracelets to My Little Pony. Yet we’re only interested in this now that the future is finally slapping us around (thanks data fees, streaming woes and TVs that are threatening us with more 3D widgets than there are sticks to shake).

A recent article from the Boston Phoenix has got to be shot down right now: VHS is not “the new vinyl.” It isn’t anything like that. The vinyl resurgence came during the mid-aughts when DJs spun in Manhattan and Carlos D was busy giving most of the East Village a reason to head to free clinics. VHS went the way of the Dodo and Betamax because of DVDs; in a coincidental twist, A History of Violence would be the final VHS tape commercially produced and the become something of a novelty item. A special edition of House of the Devil comes packaged with VHS tape–complete with scratches and dust–packaged in an unwieldy plastic box that would look at home on a West Coast Video shelf.

Even now, VHS is mainly like a visual ode to genre films of the 80s and early 90s. 92Y Tribeca’s recent found VHS night celebrated a selection of tapes and the trailers they would come pre-loaded with, ranging from Canadian romances to the Japanese recut of “CYBOOOOOORRRRRRG COPPA THREE.” Other secrets are unearthed by the guys behind VHShitfest, as they dive into their massive (seriously, it goes around a room) collection of obscure tapes.  Besides, VHS even helped give credit to that old Rapture idea according to an Everything Is Terrible! appearance on infoMania:

Novelty doesn’t mean popularity. Those that tout the VHS flag readily admit the shortcomings: the tape degrades regardless of care, unlike vinyl which really does depend on the quality of care. VHS is becoming less and less relevant as we switch formats and begin that great migration toward cloud systems. But even we keep the odd VHS tape due to sentimental reasons (we’re looking at you original The Evil Dead and Hard Core Logo) that transcends the common sense we spout. The other big problem with VHS: it doesn’t look any better. Vinyl gets re-issued and remastered, but new VHS tapes are made to be “intentionally” grainy. It’s the same self-assured smugness if you buy the grainy DVD value packs of “60 Horror Films!” that you’re getting something how it should be viewed.

Even films that were originally shot on video are now being released on DVD for quality and cult reasons, like Sledge Hammer through the folks at Mondo Films. VHS isn’t a sign of quality or prestige; it’s more like an 8-Track than a Vinyl re-release. And while we hold a special place in our FlimBuff hearts for them, we know a losing metaphor when we see one.

Conversely: the vinyl market is doing fantastic if infographics from Buzzfeed are correct. VHS Sales? Not even commercially viable; it’s a market for trading and informal sales that are more like collecting Magic: The Gathering cards–except not even the good ones, more like a third-rate rip-off. So while we love our old friend the VHS tape, you know who we love even more? Blu-ray and his older brother DVD and their brand new brother, Streaming HD Instant services.

We’ll miss you, VHS. We’re not breaking up, really but…well…we’ll always have Hard Core Logo.

We’ve been let down by so much over the past month—our friends, our roommates, Kenneth Branagh, the list could go on forever. But when it comes to dealing with the old standbys, these are the five we find we can always count on without missing a beat. They know what they’re delivering and we’ll love them forever for it.

Bruce Campbell

The quintessential actor’s actor in that when he puts a chainsaw on his arm, you know he’s ready to get some. Whether he’s on Reddit talking to his fans or copacetic when it comes to facing ancient Chinese demons, Bruce Campbell knows what he’s doing. That’s what we love about the Evil Dead star whose cameos throughout the original Spider-Man trilogy hold up incredibly well or if he’s battling CGI aliens that live in wooden forts.

Alfred Hitchcock

The director who is constantly being reshot, re-imagined and even reviled is someone who we’ve come to heavily reply upon. Consider it our glance back with nostalgia goggles, but we’ve come to appreciate Hitchcock’s twists and subtle tricks that laid the basis for most of his modern contemporaries. We’ll always be afraid of showers thanks to Psycho, even if the sequels made Norman Bates into a pop culture caricature. We know what you meant to do, Al. And we’ll always appreciate that.

Uwe Boll

An inspired choice, no? But think about it: Boll has consistently churned out the same generic stuff over and over to the point of parodying himself in Postal. He makes films purely designed to enrage nerds and enrage folks—see the “fat vampire” film Blubberella or the fact he made a film about/and titled Auschwitz. Boll is a constant force of production whose schedule is constant. House of the Dead wound up taking place on an island at a rave, which has nothing to do with video game source material. But a shot toward the end of the film involves zombies and a simple dolly shot moving through a tunnel, which he intercuts with footage from the same sequence in the original game. Boll has subtle moments of brilliance when he’s not trolling us.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

This list seems a little genre heavy. Am I right?  Well, our sole defense of this choice is JCVD. The “Muscles from Brussels” is a consistent action star, but only recently have his choices reached out to us as constant must-sees. Yes, we remain incredibly colored by the fact that he’s a man who is slowly giving way to mortality, but we also can’t stop watching Bloodsport every time it comes on TV. That’s like every day at 2 pm!

Tina Fey

An easy choice, but also the best choice since she’s emerged in public, complete with Bossypants in tow.  Fey slays on 30 Rock and she unexpectedly helped make Sarah Palin into an event. As a writer and voice, she’s one-of-a-kind and let’s not forget the role that made her famous—the Burrito in Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. The awards she won for that are countless*.

*We are making that up. We just couldn’t think up any more ways to praise 30 Rock.